A different kind of bird in the coop - What to do?

[bjones1128]

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So yesterday my son and I were putting hardware cloth over the ventilation at the top of the coop. We have new "replacement" chicks coming in a few days (to replace the ones that jumped out of the box at the post office) and we needed to get the two month old "teenagers" in the big coop - even if the coop isn't done yet. We wanted to make sure it was very "predator proof" first.

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But some Carolina Wrens (our state bird, lol) have made a nest in the coop and have three hungry babies inside. We had a system going. We would hammer until we saw mama or daddy bird (or both, they mate for life and both feed the babies) fly to the top of the coop. We would stop hammering, they would come in and feed their brood while we stood there, then they would fly away and we would hammer again. This went on for a couple of hours and it was really neat to get to be so close to a nest of babies being fed.

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Anyway, now I'm in a quandary. If I close up the ventilation holes, the parents won't be able to get back to their nest of babies, which means the babies will die. If I don't close it up, I risk predators (we live in the country near the woods and have plenty) killing my own babies....

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[AndystUK]

Perhaps cater for the size of the birds you want to house including the squatters, a small access hole drilled to the side wall allows access to the wrens but nothing larger. cap the hole with aluminum plate to prevent predators knoring it larger.

You can wire off the wrens to your new hens to prevent birdflu issues.

Again if you size the prevention / access correctly to the size of the hens /wrens you will hopefully enlarge this periodically to suit the hens and by that time the wrens will have flown away. But make it home for them next season.

 

[4 the Birds]

+1
Leave the Wren and babies alone. Hold off on shoring up small openings until they leave the nest. You may need to escort them out as they leave nest so they can find they way out. Mama will still feed them for a short while after they hop out of the nest.

 

[bjones1128]

Perhaps cater for the size of the birds you want to house including the squatters, a small access hole drilled to the side wall allows access to the wrens but nothing larger. cap the hole with aluminum plate to prevent predators knoring it larger.

You can wire off the wrens to your new hens to prevent birdflu issues.

Again if you size the prevention / access correctly to the size of the hens /wrens you will hopefully enlarge this periodically to suit the hens and by that time the wrens will have flown away. But make it home for them next season.

I thought about leaving a small access hole... but was concerned that the wrens might not be able to find it? They are used to having the whole top to fly into.

 

[bjones1128]

Well, I ended up leaving two sides open so the birds could get in and out. Eventually, the babies flew out on their own. Once they made it out of the coop they never came back. And once the babies were gone, the parents had enough of the all the goings on and they never came back, either. So I assume they made their next nest somewhere else and all is well in the coop! Now it's time to close up those other two sides.